1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a microinjection equipment, and more particularly to a microinjection equipment suited to a microinjection technology of introducing a gene solution, a pharmaceutical solution, etc., into a fine particle such as a cell by use of a micro needle and to a fine particle transporting technology in a biological field such as a cell analysis.
2. Description of the Related Technology
Fields such as regenerative medical treatments and developments of new drugs employ a substance introducing technology of introducing a predetermined substance into a cell and verifying whether there is an effect or not.
The conventional substance introduction technologies are represented by a virus vector method and a Lipofection method. In these methods, the whole of introduction target cells and should-be-introduced substance is treated as one batch. This type of substance introduction method is called a batchwise substance introduction method.
This batchwise substance introduction method is simple in terms of operation and uses, while on the other hand, a large quantity of cells and a large quantity of introduction substance are required for one introduction experiment. Accordingly, the batchwise substance introduction method is unsuited to a case of using precious cells and reagents. Hence, such a problem arises that the batchwise substance introduction method can not be applied to the verification of the effect provided by introducing a microdose of pharmaceutical, which will be requested from now on.
On the other hand, it is considered that a large number of patterns of experiments will hereafter be conducted by employing the microdose of cells and the introduction liquid. With such a background, there is demanded a technology of surely introducing a fixed quantity of introduction substance into the individual particles such as the cells that are as large in quantity as 105 to 106 pieces aseptically in a short period of time.
Such being the case, a microinjection method is proposed as a technology capable of introducing the fixed quantity of introduction substance into the individual cells (for example, see Non-Patent documents 1-3). This microinjection method is generally utilized in the field of artificial inseminations etc.
Further, there has hitherto been proposed a microinjection equipment that introduces the introduction substance into the individual cells by the microinjection method.
The microinjection equipment is constructed so that a micro needle is manipulated by a manipulator, and the introduction substance filled into an interior of the micro needle is introduced into the particle such as the cell.    [Non-Patent document 1] Saya Ito, Microinjection, [online], [searched on Apr. 14, 2006], Intenet<URL:http://www.iam.u-tokyo.ac.jp/bnsikato/protocol/7-3.html>    [Non-Patent document 2] Mikako Saito, Nano-Injection into ES Cell by Use of Single Cell Manipulation Supporting Robot, [online], [searched on Apr. 14, 2006], Internet<URL:http://www.nanonet.go.jp/japanese/mailmag/2005/081b.html>
In the conventional microinjection equipment, however, the micro needle has been manually fitted to the manipulator. Therefore, such a problem exists that a comparatively long period of time is required for fitting and exchanging the micro needle.
Moreover, in the conventional microinjection equipment, when fitting the micro needle to the manipulator, a hand and a finger might touch a needle tip, and the needle tip might be damaged and contaminated.